Skeletal remains found near Old Ferry Landing in W. Feliciana

Skeletal remains found near Old Ferry Landing in W. Feliciana

Bones sent to LSU FACES Lab for DNA testing

ST. FRANCISVILLE — Brush-hogging has been a fairly routine activity for the past 40 years for Lee Willie Swan, but on Sunday, whacking overgrown grass came with an unexpected shock when the 59-year-old worker stumbled upon the skeletal remains of an unidentified person near the Old Ferry Landing.

“I was backing up — after having just made a cut — when I saw the leg bone,” Swan said Monday.

Although he was pretty sure it was a human bone, Swan said it was after he made another pass with his brush hog and unearthed a human skull that his suspicions were confirmed.

“Once I got down and saw the skeletal head, I took my foot and rolled it over to make sure it was human,” he said. “When I rolled it over, I could see what looked like a tongue. That’s when I knew for sure.”

Swan, a parish employee who was moonlighting Sunday for a private company, didn’t panic (it wasn’t the first time in his life he’d seen a dead body, he says); he simply called his boss, who in turn called police.